2024-01-06 05:56:55
The decision of the Constitutional Court (TC) to foreseeably annul the ruling of the Supreme Court that condemned Alberto Rodríguez for kicking a police officer in a protest in 2014 and which led to the withdrawal of his seat – a resolution pending being brought to the Plenary in the first months of the year – opens the door for the former Podemos deputy to demand from Congress the payment of the deputy’s salary that he stopped receiving until the end of the legislature after the withdrawal of the parliamentary record in October 2021 by decision of Meritxell Batet.
In the Plenary Session of the TC held last October, the presentation by Judge María Luisa Segoviano – who considered the withdrawal of the seat disproportionate – was not shared by her colleagues, who, however, did mostly appreciate a possible infringement of the principle of legality (one of the reasons given in his appeal by the defense of the former purple deputy), understanding that the sanction finally imposed, a fine (as a substitute for the sentence of one month and 15 days in prison for a crime of attack against authority), did not The accessory of disqualification may be tied, which would mean annulling the withdrawal of the seat (Rodríguez was deprived of his deputy’s record by incurring a cause of ineligibility arising in application of article 6.2 of the Electoral Law).
Now, Segoviano herself, a former judge of the Supreme Court, must bring to the plenary session a new resolution that reflects the majority feelings of her colleagues. A ruling in the terms expressed that, according to sources from the Constitutional Court, may give rise to Alberto Rodríguez “to initiate a request to the Congress Board for the payment of the salaries not received and for the Board to decide.”
And, according to the sources consulted by LA RAZÓN, “if the TC concludes that Alberto Rodríguez has been unduly deprived of his status as a deputy, he will undoubtedly request payment of his deputy salaries,” unless the resolution – they clarify – “expressly questions that claim”, in which case “we will have to see what the Congressional Board decides.” “This is like an unfair dismissal: he has been fired and he did not want to be fired,” they point out.
One year and seven months’ salary
Given that the XIV Legislature ended on May 30, after the call for the 23J elections, the former Podemos deputy could claim the salary that he stopped receiving until that date since October 22, 2021, when Batet withdrew his seat. , which means one year and seven months of emoluments (which this year amounted to more than 3,100 euros per month of base salary plus the corresponding supplements for being part of parliamentary committees and, where appropriate, another two thousand euros as a deputy elected by a constituency other than Madrid).
Sources close to Alberto Rodríguez’s defense point out, however, that the former deputy has not yet made a decision on the matter while waiting to know the terms of the TC ruling.
The former secretary of the Podemos Organization was sentenced for the crime of attacking law enforcement officials to one month and 15 days in prison and a penalty of special disqualification from the right to passive suffrage for the duration of the sentence. In the sentence, the court agreed to replace the prison sentence with a fine of 540 euros, which Alberto Rodríguez paid.
The testimony of an agent, key
The altercation that cost him his deputy record occurred on January 25, 2014 during a protest against Lomce in La Laguna (Tenerife), where the then Minister of Education José Ignacio Wert had attended. After the gathered people uttered insults against the agents and against the minister, “they began to attack the fence, throwing fences at the agents as well as various objects such as stones, water bottles and others,” states the Supreme Court ruling. According to the testimony of One of the police officers, who was key to convicting the then purple deputy, Alberto Rodríguez “voluntarily kicked him on his left knee.”
However, the former Secretary of the Podemos Organization denied the facts and complained at the trial that the only evidence to convict him was “the mere statement of a police officer against all evidence.” “If that is worth subjecting you to a judicial ordeal for so long and for an eventual conviction to occur, we are facing very serious facts,” he denounced his right to the last word.
In his appeal for protection, Alberto Rodríguez’s defense, led by lawyer Gonzalo Boye, argued that the Supreme Court’s conviction allegedly violated the parliamentarian’s right to the presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection, the principle of legality, and the rights of assembly and demonstration and political representation as well as the principle of proportionality.
His lawyer denounced that the penalty of disqualification from the right to passive suffrage (to be a candidate) led to “an extra-criminal consequence” – the loss of the seat – which, according to him, represented in fact the “deprivation of a political right that affects more than 64,000 voters in his constituency”.
The Supreme Court endorsed the withdrawal of the seat
According to the criteria of his defense, since the prison sentence had been replaced by the payment of a fine, the penalty of disqualification that this entailed (for which Meritxell Batet withdrew his seat) should not have been imposed. “There is no rule that indicates that the accessory sentence had to be served, even though the prison sentence has already been replaced,” he complained. However, the Supreme Court had already made it clear that the prison sentence does not disappear by paying the substitute fine.
By rejecting the incident of annulment of the sentence raised by Alberto Rodríguez’s lawyer, the Supreme Court concluded that the withdrawal of the seat did not violate his right to political participation because “non-compliance with the norms contained in the Penal Code, which contain the ethical minimum socially enforceable, can legitimately produce restrictions in the exercise of that right”.
Likewise, he denied that the sentence imposed was disproportionate since the conviction had led to the removal of Rodríguez’s seat by the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, in application of article 6.2 of the Electoral Law. “There is nothing strange that the legislator has generally established the impossibility of anyone who has been sentenced for a crime to imprisonment, being disqualified from representing popular sovereignty in the Chambers,” the high court emphasized. .
The Supreme Court insisted that the withdrawal of the seat was not a penalty in itself, but rather an “extra-procedural consequence” of the sentence to one month and 15 days in prison, replaced by a fine, and the special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage. .
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